Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools by G.P. Taylor Read Free Book Online

the one who requested the presence of the Bureau of Antiquities.’
    ‘Perhaps he has heard about the assassin,’ Mariah said.
    ‘Perhaps he sent him …’ Charity replied.
    Mariah never mentioned the assassin again that day. The morning was spent walking the deck of the Triton , until they had walked for five miles. The promenade was packed with people of all sorts. Suited gentlemen followed skirted ladies like pet dogs. Mariah tried to listen to their conversations as he walked by, keeping pace with Charity’s military stride. All the time he looked out for the assassin’s accomplice, and every man who looked at him for more than a second was treated with suspicion. By lunchtime, the walk was complete. They ate together on the reserved foredeck, all the time watching out for some sign of the Ketos . The other passengers looked on, wondering why the man and boy had a place of such privilege. Far below, the Atlantic was calm as an old millpond. On the furthest horizon was a faint billowing of smoke – a sign, Charity said, of the funnels of the Ketos . Mariah peered through Captain Charity’s spyglass, but could see nothing.
    Above them, the Bicameralist sailed on majestically. At one o’clock in the afternoon it blotted out the sun and covered the ship in a deep shadow. With not one cloud in the sky, the skyship looked as though it were a broken piece of the moon floating upon the deep azure.
    By late afternoon the skyship had sailed on faster than the Triton until it could no longer be seen. It was then that Mariah saw the ship on the port side. At first it seemed to be going the same way, heading out to the deep Atlantic and away from the Irish coast. Sometime later it turned and began to steam towards the Triton at full speed. Taking the spyglass he looked towards the ship and saw a man on the bridge of the ship flash a coded message towards the Triton . As if in recognition of what had been said, the Triton gave seven loud blasts upon its horn and then began to slow down.
    Mariah looked again, and again a message in light was flashed from the ship and the Triton blasted its horn.
    ‘I think we have an important guest,’ Mariah said to Captain Charity as, wrapped in two large blankets, he dozed in a deck chair.
    ‘Does the vessel have two funnels?’ Charity asked Mariah.
    Mariah looked at the ship through the telescope. ‘Two funnels and a small mast,’ he replied.
    ‘And are they painted gold and red?’ he asked without opening his eyes.
    Mariah looked again. ‘Gold and red with a band of black,’ he said.
    ‘Then our guest is the Marquis Lyon DeFeaux and that is his ship, the Diablo .’
    It was not long before Mariah could read the nameplate on the front of the vessel that steamed full ahead towards them. On deck he could see several men with long rifles and an older man in a fur hat and matching coat that looked as though it had been forcibly taken from the back of a polar bear.
    The Diablo turned slowly as it drew to a halt in the shadow of the great ship. Without any fuss, a wooden launch was lowered into the sea. The man in the fur hat stepped on board, followed by two other figures dressed exactly the same. They hunched together in the back of the boat as if to keep warm as a giant of a man took the helm and sailed the craft towards the Triton .
    ‘They’re about to come on board,’ Mariah said, hoping to interest Charity in doing something other than sleeping on the deck.
    ‘Really?’ Charity replied without concern. ‘Is there a Leviathan of a man steering the launch?’ He had some mysterious way of seeing that which he could not see.
    ‘Yes,’ said Mariah, impatiently, ‘and two others dressed exactly the same as the Marquis.’
    ‘Then we shall be truly blessed at dinner,’ Charity snorted with a laugh. ‘The mountainous man is Casper Vikash – his bodyguard. The others will be his wife and daughter.’
    ‘Do you know him well?’ Mariah asked as the small launch came